Year-End Email Under a Microscope

The things that some people do to help us all learn. This is one of the reasons I just love Steve MacLaughlin, director of analytics at Blackbaud. Steve goes to great lengths to provide insight to us all, and he has done it again with his annual review of year-end fundraising email subject lines.

Steve received 445 emails from 74 nonprofit organizations between Dec. 1 and 31, 2014. In his report, he shares every single (yep, all 445) subject lines along with information on timing and delivery dates. There are great nuggets in here, and it's just fun being a bit of an email stalker and looking at all the "obvious" and also "unique" subject lines.

Take a look at his article, but here are a few of the items that caught my eye …

1. Dec. 2 and Dec. 31 had the highest volume and greatly surpassed most of the other days in December. Dec. 30 was a close runner-up but still not to the volume of the 2nd and 31st.
2. Weekdays were heavier than weekends for nonprofit communication.
3. Not shocking, 2014 volume is definitely higher than 2013.
4. Steve begs what I call the "chicken/egg" question around email delivery and online donations. But his data clearly shows that there is a peek time that at least these nonprofits were sending their emails — it appears that 11 a.m. is the most "favorite" time to press send.
5. Ever wondered just how many emails you should send during this critical giving period? Well, looking across these 74 organizations, Steve determined that the median was six. Obviously, there are those who sent way more, but the data point he shares is great.
6. Steve also highlights some campaigns that really caught his eye, and I'm not going to steal his thunder — you'll have to check out his article for yourself.